Geoffrey Skelley, Elena Mejía, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Laura Bronner of FiveThirtyEight –
President Trump spent the last few months of the presidential campaign appealing to — and sometimes even pleading with — suburban voters. At a rally in Pennsylvania in October, Trump called out suburban women specifically, saying that “they should like me more than anybody here tonight because I ended the regulation that destroyed your neighborhood,” referring to his administration’s move to end a government program aimed at reducing segregation in suburban areas. “I ended the regulation that brought crime to the suburbs,” said Trump. “[A]nd you’re going to live the American dream.”
It was plain to see that Trump wasn’t talking to all suburbanites, though. He appeared to have a specific vision of the suburbs in mind: Something like the modern day equivalent of the white, well-to-do characters from 1950s sitcoms who had big, well-manicured lawns and white picket fences, agreed with their neighbors about most things — from which presidential candidate to support to what makes a good tuna casserole — and were, in the past, the targets of racial dog-whistles like Trump’s.
